Page 7. The struggle to survive: 1840–1865

Wellington: the first British settlement

Set up to promote a British colony in New Zealand, the New
Zealand Company chose Wellington as its first organised
settlement. It was planned to be the new colony’s capital
city.

The company hoped to create an orderly centre, but early
Wellington was chaotic. Late in 1839 William Wakefield, the
company’s New Zealand agent, sailed from Wellington in search
of more land, leaving instructions for the settlement to be
laid out around Lambton Harbour.

Britannia – a false start

However, the company’s chief surveyor, William Mein Smith,
placed the town near the mouth of the Hutt (Heretaunga)
River. Here he found enough flat land for the town plan.

Early in 1840 the first six immigrant ships arrived off
Pito-one (now Petone). There had been little preparation for
their arrival. With Māori help the first settlers built huts
along the foreshore. The young settlement was called
Britannia. But within months it was flooded by the Hutt
River.

What’s yours is mine

Many of the first Wellington landowners were speculators
who remained in Britain, which encouraged squatting.
Arriving in Wellington in 1841, settler Thomas Bevan
discovered a squatter on land bought by his local vicar in
Wales. Bevan reported, ‘He has made himself a small house
on it, and fenced for his own use, a little garden. … He
has let the remainder of the acre to five others, who have
built temporary huts upon it.’1

Wellington – a new beginning

On his return from England a few months later, Wakefield
moved the town to less flood-prone Lambton Harbour. The land
had not been sold by its Māori occupants, but this did not
stop the company subdividing it into town acres. One tenth of
these were kept for Māori use. A green reserve running around
the edge of the settlement was also set aside. This became
known as the Town Belt.

When settlers arrived to claim their lots, they found that
some lay within Māori pā, or were
inaccessible. Some settlers, and displaced Māori, ended up
squatting on land that had absentee owners.

A trading town

The first settlers forged strong trading relationships
with Māori, exchanging goods and cash for fresh food and
labour. Merchants took land along the beach, building
warehouses and jetties. The most novel of the jetties was
Plimmer’s Ark, a ship’s hulk that merchant John Plimmer
beached in 1849 at the southern end of Lambton Quay. The Ark
soon became a centre for Wellington trade.

Auckland the capital

Wakefield had hoped to make Wellington the capital of New
Zealand, but in 1840 Governor William Hobson chose Auckland
instead. He also began looking into the New Zealand Company’s
land purchases.

Māori resistance and the Wairau conflict

Wakefield wanted Wellington to be independent. But at the
same time he needed British troops to defend it against Māori
attack, a real prospect after a conflict on the Wairau plains
in 1843. Some Nelson settlers, led by Arthur Wakefield, had
tried to take up land they believed they had purchased from
the Ngāti Toa tribe in the Wairau Valley, Marlborough. Ngāti
Toa disputed the deal, and resisted the takeover. In a
confrontation four Māori and 22 Europeans were killed.
Settlers urged Governor Robert FitzRoy (Hobson’s successor)
to punish the tribe. But FitzRoy thought Ngāti Toa had been
provoked, and refused.

End of resistance

Tension between settlers and Māori grew. Following
skirmishes in the Hutt Valley and at Pāuatahanui, Governor
Grey, who replaced FitzRoy, boldly arrested Te Rauparaha in
July 1846. The following month his troops bombarded Te
Rangihaeata’s pa at Battle Hill. After enduring the attack
for several days – with the loss of nine people – Te
Rangihaeata fled north. This ended Ngāti Toa resistance and
allowed European settlement to spread.

By the early 1850s the Māori population was dwindling, and
some returned to tribal homelands in Taranaki. Others settled
on reserve lands, such as Waiwhetū (Lower Hutt).

Decline of the New Zealand Company

George Grey was more successful than the New Zealand
Company in keeping order in Wellington. Grappling with rising
debts, the company collapsed in 1850.

Hutt Valley

After government forces removed Ngāti Toa-aligned Māori in
1846, the Hutt Valley grew as a farming and horticultural
district. Over the next few decades settlers cleared the
forest and built townships at Upper Hutt, Lower Hutt and
Petone.

The business district grows

Hemmed in by hills and sea, Wellington’s business district
lacked room to grow. In 1857 the government reclaimed from
the sea a triangle of land next to Plimmer’s Ark. The newly
formed Bank of New Zealand bought a block at the southern
apex and built its Wellington branch office. At the seaward
end, the town’s first deep-water wharf (Queen’s Wharf) was
built, as was a new post office and bond store.

This was the beginning of Wellington’s financial district.
Like other mercantile cities, it grew beside the main
wharves, reflecting the strong links of finance and
communications with trade.

The capital – at last

Trade alone was not enough to guarantee the town’s
survival. In 1865 the capital was finally moved from Auckland
to Wellington. Only then did the city have a certain
future.